LETTERS
filled with the contradictions of the
human condition . They have a terri–
ble beauty : they are a portrait of a
flawed but extraordinarily gifted
man, dedicated to the art of poetry,
struggling to survive .
The disintegration of such a
person and mind was more than ap–
palling, it was tragic . Mr. Shechner
would like to take the sense of this
away from those who knew him.
Elizabeth Pollet
New York , New York
To the Editor :
If
Mark Shechner thinks too
many of Delmore Schwartz's manu–
scripts are being published post–
humously, he is entitled to his opin–
ion . But in his review of Elizabeth
Pollet's edition of Schwartz's jour–
nals and notes,
Portrait ofDelmore (PR
3, 1987), he misreads a statement in
my foreword to Schwartz's
The Ego Is
Always at the Wheel,
and creates an ut–
terly false impression of my inten–
tions as Schwartz's literary executor.
In that foreword I corrected
Elizabeth Hardwick's comment, in
her perceptive review of
Letters of
173
Delmore Schwartz
on page one of
The
New York Times Book Review,
in which
she concluded that , with the
Letters,
"it seems that now we have the whole
of the writings." I stated that this was
not so, that there was "a considerable
amount of writing to be evaluated
for publication." I went on to say
those unpublished manuscripts in–
cluded novels , stories , plays, an
Eliot study, and the manuscript of
Book Two of the autobiographical
poem,
Genesis,
which I called "inter–
minable." This adjective alone, and
the words "to be evaluated," should
have made it clear that much, if not
most, of the unpublished material
will remain unpublished .
Yet Mr. Shechner calls my
foreword a caution that forthcoming
publications are likely to include
"verse plays, unpublished novels,
stories, a book-length critical study
ofT. S. Eliot, and the autobiograph–
ical poem that Schwartz wrestled
with for years . . . . " I suggest that
the "tide of Schwartziana" that seems
to have overwhelmed Mr. Shechner
is partially the result of his inability
to read .
Robert Phillips
Katonah , New York
